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| NERLENS NOEL IS ONE OF THE TOP DEFENSIVE PLAYERS EVER TO PLAY COLLEGE HOOPS - HE IS A REBOUNDING, SHOT-BLOCKING, DEFENSIVE MACHINE
Getting inside the numbers on this trade is not as hard as it might seem.
Some fans might think that Jrue Holiday was a pretty good player. After all, he was an NBA all-star. However, the only categories he really was among the league leaders in was turnovers, in which he ranked 2d at 292 (that's very bad), FG attempts (10th), which means he was sort of like Iverson, and he ranked 3d overall in assists and 4th in Assists per Game (APG) with 8, which is pretty good. That's his best stat.
But when you sum it all up, Jrue Holiday is actually not a winning player. His win shares have been in free fall for the last three years. His win shares the past three seasons go 5.7, 4.2 and 3.3, which means he's been steadily declining, rather than improving. His win shares per 48 minutes the prior two seasons, playing with Iguodala and Brand, were .094 and .092, whereas this past season he dropped off to .055.
He has had one bright spot, and that is in the playoffs the season before, when the Sixers made their run in 2011-12, Holiday's win shares per 48 minutes were .148, which is an impressive number, and he played very well indeed as the Sixers beat the Bulls and took a very good Celtics team to seven games. The other good point about Holiday is he plays a lot of minutes, and is quite durable. He's among the top ten or fifteen in the league in minutes played and minutes per game played. That's a good thing.
But he's a 6 foot 3 guard who ranks very low in effective field goal percentage, and has a poor turnover to assist ratio. for an explanation of all this, we refer you to a sister site:
Quoting from this site:
Here is the public perception on Jrue Holiday: He's a playmaker. He can take control of a game. He holds a varied skill set. He's not Evan Turner. He quickly became the fan favorite in Philly, partially because any distraction from the Andrew Bynum Pro Bowling League was a welcome one.
However, those people clearly haven't looked at the numbers. Let's do a fun "Player A, Player B" breakdown. It's not particularly useful because you don't receive a larger context for a player, but man, it's so much fun when you can come up with comparisons like this.
Player A: .466 eFG%, 36.5 AST%, 17.3 TOV%, 99 ORtg, 107 DRtg
Player B: .493 eFG%, 32.2 AST%, 19.3 TOV%, 112 ORtg, 109 DRtg
Yeah, slightly more turnovers are a problem, but that extra 0.13 points per possession would sure be nice in Philadelphia when the offense sputters worse than a 1967 Oldsmobile. Oh, what's that? Player A is Jrue Holiday and Player B is Andre Miller, the now-37 year old point guard the Sixers pushed out four years ago in favor of young guys like Holiday and Lou Williams? Well then.
If that isn't enough for you, how about this context: according to stats.nba.com, among the 145 players that played at least 75 games last season, Holiday's .466 effective field goal percentage (eFG%) was 112th. His assist/turnover ratio, supposedly one of the best parts of his game, was only 31st behind such vaunted PGs as Kemba Walker, Darren Collison, andLuke Ridnour.
This was supposed to be Holiday's breakout All-Star season? Please.
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Essentially, Jrue Holiday is like a bad version of Allen Iversion.
Who doesn't score as much. Most of Holiday's win share value is on the defensive end, but at six foot three, Holiday can't guard the taller players in the league. His offensive win shares are low, and he is not an efficient point guard.
On top of this, he was due for a salary bump to nearly $10 million a year the next three years. Since he was only producing 3.3 win shares a year, that would be costing the Sixers nearly 3.3 million dollars a win. That's expensive.
Thaddeus Young, Dorrell Wright and Spencer Hawes all had more win shares last season than Jrue Holiday, with 7.4, 4.9 and 4.5 respectively. Holiday's 3.3 was a distant fourth.
In terms of win shares per 48 minutes, Holiday was even worst--his .055 win shares per 48 minutes was only 11th best on the Sixers, and one of the worst figures in the league. The leaders on the Sixers were Arnett Moultrie, Thad Young and Dorrell Wright, all well over .130.
Nerlens Noel
Now let's take a look at Nerlens Noel. We only have one year of college data, but what amazing data it is.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/noelne01.html
http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/nerlens-noel-1.html
Nerlens Noel averaged .209 win shares per 40 minutes played. That .251 win shares per 48 minutes played. This is the list of win share leaders per 48 minutes played in the NBA last year:
Win Shares Per 48 Minutes
| 1. | LeBron James-MIA | .322 |
| 2. | Kevin Durant-OKC | .291 |
| 3. | Chris Paul-LAC | .287 |
| 4. | Tyson Chandler-NYK | .207 |
| 5. | Tony Parker-SAS | .206 |
| 6. | James Harden-HOU | .206 |
| 7. | Marc Gasol-MEM | .197 |
| 8. | Tiago Splitter-SAS | .197 |
| 9. | Blake Griffin-LAC | .196 |
| 10. | Russell Westbrook-OKC | .195 |
| 11. | Dwyane Wade-MIA | .192 |
| 12. | Tim Duncan-SAS | .191 |
| 13. | Brook Lopez-BRK | .191 |
| 14. | Carmelo Anthony-NYK | .184 |
| 15. | Deron Williams-BRK | .184 |
| 16. | Serge Ibaka-OKC | .181 |
| 17. | Stephen Curry-GSW | .180 |
| 18. | David West-IND | .179 |
| 19. | George Hill-IND | .177 |
| 20. | Chris Bosh-MIA | .175 |
Even assuming that Nerlens Noel only plays at some percentage of his college capacity, he would be among the top 20 NBA players in terms of win shares per 48 minutes played. If he played at the level he played in college in the NBA, he would be among the top five players in the NBA, 4th actually, right after Chris Paul. It would be LeBron James, Keven Durant, Chris Paul, and then Nerlens Noel in terms of win shares per 48 minutes.
Wow.
That's what I said. Wow.
Nerlens Noel's PER rating last year was 27.3. Wow.
His defensive rating relative to 100 was 81.3, while his offensive rating relative to 100 was 112.9. He was 32 points better than average, taking into account his superior offensive skills and superior defensive skills.
A team of five Nerlens Noels would hold a team that normally scored 100 points to 81.3 every night. While scoring 112.9. Every night would be a cake walk.
In just 24 games played, he accumulated 4 win shares. An NBA season is 82 games. That means that in an NBA season, he would have something like 13 win shares plus.
These were the leaders in win shares in the NBA last year:
Win Shares
| 1. | LeBron James-MIA | 19.3 |
| 2. | Kevin Durant-OKC | 18.9 |
| 3. | Chris Paul-LAC | 13.9 |
| 4. | James Harden-HOU | 12.8 |
| 5. | Russell Westbrook-OKC | 11.6 |
| 6. | Marc Gasol-MEM | 11.5 |
| 7. | Stephen Curry-GSW | 11.2 |
| 8. | Kobe Bryant-LAL | 10.9 |
| 9. | Deron Williams-BRK | 10.9 |
| 10. | Blake Griffin-LAC | 10.6 |
| 11. | Mike Conley-MEM | 9.9 |
| 12. | George Hill-IND | 9.7 |
| 13. | Dwyane Wade-MIA | 9.6 |
| 14. | Carmelo Anthony-NYK | 9.5 |
| 15. | Serge Ibaka-OKC | 9.4 |
| 16. | Tony Parker-SAS | 9.3 |
| 17. | Tyson Chandler-NYK | 9.3 |
| 18. | David Lee-GSW | 9.1 |
| 19. | David West-IND | 9.1 |
| 20. | Paul George-IND | 9.0 |
Wow. If Nerlens Noel even played at a fraction of his potential from college, he'd be among the top twenty players in the NBA in win shares. Only LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul would be better than Nerlens Noel.
Some other numbers: He rebounded nearly 10 boards per game, blocked 4.5 shots per game, had an effective FG% of .590, averaged 1.6 APG and even averaged 2.1 steals per game.
The NBA leader in blocks per game last year, Serge Ibaka, averaged 3 blocks per game.
The mind boggles at the possibilities.
Noel utterly, totally dominated the SEC last year.
Michael Carter-Williams
The 6 foot 6 point guard that was drafted #11 by the Sixers to replace Jrue Holiday has some fancy numbers also.
He was #2 in the NCAA last year in defensive win shares.
He led the NCAA last year in minutes played.
He lead the NCAA last year in Assists.
Take at look for yourself:
Overall, from the numbers, it's pretty clear that Carter-Williams projects out to be a far better point guard both offensively and defensively than Jrue Holiday, at least from the stats.
And, of course, he is six foot six, and played in the Big East at Syracuse.
Summing It All Up
You have to like this trade and this draft. The Sixers end up dropping payroll.
The Sixers get younger.
The Sixers get better in the long run. Not this coming year, but definitely in a couple of years.
They get a big man with huge upside potential, and not with attitude problems like Andrew Bynum.
They pick up a known quantity in Michael Carter-Williams who has two years of college ball under his belt who can play point guard and who led the nation in assists and defense at that position.
And on top of this all, the Sixers picked up extra draft picks in the first and second rounds for next years draft, which is supposed to full of great college players, so the Sixers will have 4-5 picks in the top two rounds next year to re-stock the franchise.
Right there, you feel as if the Sixers have already taken a huge step to undo the awful Andrew Bynum trade.
New Sixers GM Sam Hinkie has scored a slam dunk on draft night with this complex series of deals, and shown he understands modern basketball stats.
Now if we can just get him to manage our stock portfolios....
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